Spotify has reached 20 million subscribers; gets $526 million in new funding

Spotify has reached 20 million subscribers and 75 million monthly listeners globally, the company announced Wednesday. This latest threshold comes five months after the company announced it surpassed 15 million subscribers and 13 months after the 10 million- subscriber mark. The company claims 80 percent of new subscribers come from the free service. Spotify has now paid out $3 billion to rights holders, with $300 million paid in the first quarter alone.

Spotify has also added to its financial war chest, closing a funding round of $526 million on Tuesday that values the company at $8.53 billion. Details of the deal were reported by The Wall Street Journal and posted to CrunchBase, and confirmed to Billboard by a Spotify representative. The numerous investors include TeliaSonora AB, a Nordic telecommunications company and longtime partner that pitched in $115 million for a 1.4-percent stake. Other investors include Abu Dhabi’s sovereign-wealth fund, and asset managers, hedge funds and venture capital firms in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, according to the report.